The Mystery of the NYTPicker Perseveres: Who’s Behind The Times Torturer?

Fans (or detractors) of the goings-on inside the New York Times love it. Many within the Times—especially those who find themselves in its cross-hairs—despise it. The Times spokespeople refuse to talk to it. No matter what your feelings are on it, however, the question remains: Who’s behind the New York Times torturing blog, The NYTPicker? And now, another arises: Why did they stop?

The NYTPicker—an anonymous blog dedicated to documenting failings and inside politics of the New York Times—has resulted in (among other things) Timeswriters being fired, and the credibility of Timespieces being called into question. For a while, they were relentless, calling out anything that appeared even remotely amiss within the paper. They steadily produced a stream of questions that clearly indicated help from within the Times‘ newsroom. And still, despite plenty of people both in the building and outside of it trying to uncover the identity of the site’s author, nothing has come to fruition.

The query was revisited because the typically prolific blog hasn’t posted since March 27th.

One Romenesko tipster noted the status of an old NYTPicker suspect, David Blum. Mr. Blum is a Columbia professor and former Timesman who also edited the Village Voiceand New York Press, culled from a reader email:

“In January 2011, he started aseditor of Kindle Singles. While the NYTPicker’s last post was in March, as you note, you’ll see that regular activity on the site dropped off at the end of last year, just before Blum assumed full-time work with Amazon.”

When questioned by the Times of being behind the site in 2009, Mr. Blum at first didn’t respond for comment, and then, publicly denied it when Times reporter Rebecca Ruiz openly accused him of it on the Timessite, who then deleted the original post on the matter.